


Ministrations

by EntreNous



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Bad Fic, Cliche, Co-Written, Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-17
Updated: 2004-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is BtVS bad!fic.  Are you looking for misguided angst?  Random ennui?  Unprecedented sexual skills?  Generic traps?  Cliched descriptions and inappropriate goofiness?  You will find it all here.  This is a gentle fun-poking at the fic and genre conventions that we all use.  Oh, and there’s a teensy bit of crossover too, with The Sentinel (which misanthrope7842 loves, and EntreNous at the time had never seen in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ministrations

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with misanthrope7842, who doesn't have an author tag here on A03. But she certainly deserves well over half the credit for this!

"Xander, what's got you moping about like your puppy got vamped?"

"::sigh:: It's nothing, Spike."

"No, no. First, you were acting all of sixteen years old, then yesterday you're sobbing like a little girl, and now you're just lying here! You haven't been out in days, and I want to know what's wrong!"

"::heavy sigh:: Oh, Spike, it's just . . . it's just . . . ::quivering lip, big eyes, crocodile tears:: it's bad!fic ennui!"

***

"Right then," Spike said grimly. "It's serious, this is. We've got to find a way to shake you out of this soul-consuming, pitiful downward spiral. Especially before you start doing harmful things to yourself. Like . . . forgetting to return the rental DVDs even though you *know* the late fees cost as much as the initial charge. Or . . . like before, that time when you sat at the table, sobbing, and eating your way through four boxes of _Count Chocula_(tm). Damn it man, you even ran out of milk, and ate the last box dampened with *cranberry juice*. Something is terribly wrong." 

Spike paused to walk over to the blacked out window to stare into the nothingness that was the heavy dark curtain. "If we only *knew* how to fix this. The answer is right! in front! of! us!"

Xander reeled back in fear, curling himself into the tiniest ball possible. He resembled a volleyball-sized Nerf, though Spike reflected sadly that if he could, Xander would have collapsed into Wiffle-ball size.

"You're scaring me, Spike!" Xander said breathily, his eyes as wide as moon pies shining pure light to illuminate the dim, dank basement room they were currently occupying as roommates for eight and a half-years running. "And yet, amidst the fear, the sadness, the boredom, and yes, the slight thirst that I'm feeling, I also am feeling the stirrings of *desire*."

Xander's huskily-voiced confession had barely reached Spike's vampire-sensitive ears when he felt his own desire begin to stir. But surely that couldn't have been what the boy-man-carpenter-saver-of-worlds had meant. Perhaps he was stirring for another friut-juice-and-chocolate-breakfast-cereal concoction. Or maybe ice cream. 

Sparing a thought or two for blood-drizzled Chubby Hubby, Spike turned his platinum-blonde head, which contained his ruby-red lips, and his big blue eyes, and his hyphenated-thoughts, to Xander.

"Xander, this desire . . . is it . . . is it for . . . for me?"

Xander slowly tore his eyes away from the prominent bulge quickly hardening in Spike's spray-painted-on black jeans. "Please," he whispered hoarsely, his long thick lashes fluttering wildly over his marmite-colored eyes. The steely length in Spike's pants seemed to jump in response, impossible though that seemed due to the tightness of his denim-clad limbs.

"Please what, pet? Love? Xan-pet? Xander-lander-rama-lama-ding-dong? My precious sweetling boychick?"

"Please," Xander pleaded, his eyes sending out an even greater plea than he could have pled (?) himself if he had tried to plea-bargain . . . "Please! Um . . . I'm not quite sure what, but something involving you biting and claiming me, and shouting 'Mine!' so loudly that the neighbors call to complain?"

Spike paused for a moment to dig suddenly shaking hands around in his luggage-sized pockets for his lighter and smokes. No, that was a bit of string . . . there was a ticket stub . . . ah, there was the lube, not to be misplaced, and . . . yes! -- there they were, the lighter and cigarettes! which also trembled as he closed slim-fingers around them. The tremors in his digits aided him in loosening one from their pack, and, as he lit it, his thoughts turned back to the mortal youth who had so long ago captured his fancy. 

When had he, the baddest of the bad, fallen for this creature of such beguiling wiles? His free hand dropped to absently caress his quickly growing member. It pointed like a divining rod at the man-child, still huddled in the corner, but looking less and less like sporting equipment as his baggy cargo pants became ever less baggy, and the scent of pheromones filled the air. 

Xander licked his lips in an unknowingly innocent, yet undeniably sexy way. Spike wondered, why waste his time in thought and contemplation of the treasures hidden beneath those blindingly bright clothes when they were being offered so sweetly?

Xander slowly untangled his long, muscular, well-defined limbs and rose to his full height, once again licking his lips, biting them, and curling his tongue in Spike's general direction.

Spike barely had time to think that he should really get Xander some medicated _Chapstick_(tm) before he realized with a start the darkness and power emanating out of the raven-haired beauty before him.

Xander moved across the room like a coltish gazelle-ish graceful cobra, and pinned Spike neatly to the wall, grinding their hardnesses together and pulling twin high-pitched needy moans out of their throats.

//Knock it off, you two! Some of us are trying to watch Most Extreme Elimination Challenge// came the neighbor's voice from the other side of the wall. 

Xander just shook his head sadly. He knew, somehow, had known always, that people wouldn't understand their extremely loud love. Just wait until he made Spike scream every time he came.

"Spike, I want you to know . . . I've never done it with a man before, but I'd like to offer myself up to you, to your lusts and pleasures, and love and devotion, on this very night, even though we only just realized we were attracted to one another a couple of seconds ago. Yet even though I'm a virgin to the love of a man, I'd like to reassure you that I'll make up for my lack of experience with my boundless enthusiasm. Well that, and the fact that I'm pretty sure that I'm a natural at giving head. And I want you to top, because, duh! You're Spike. And I'm Xander. Bottom boy of the twenty-first century. Just please . . . " his voice drifted down to a hushed whisper "be gentle. At least, be gentle until I tell you to fuck me really hard, and then give to me fast and furious."

::rustle, rustle, nudge, nudge, wink, wink::

Shortly after Xander had proven himself quite adept indeed at the perfect blow-job, lack of experience not dampening his enthusiasm or his ability to deep-throat in the slightest, Spike had managed to drive himself onto Xander's prostate (one r) on every stroke, thanks to miraculous vampire recovery time and amazing aim.

(Insert attempt at hot dirty talk here that ends up more like the soundtrack to a really bad home-porno)

Spike and Xander released twin animalistic screams of pleasure at having reached completion simultaneously, and Spike drew his newly claimed lover into his arms. 

"Xander, pet, light in my dark, that was perfect. The most amazing experience I've ever had. The best."

Xander raised himself onto one elbow and gazed adoringly into Spike's eyes. "The best? But you're, and I'm, and you've--"

"Yes, precious Xan-muffin love-pet. But you see, there's something I haven't yet told you. Bloody. Bugger. Tea and Crumpets!" Spike shook his head at the sudden outpouring of Britishisms, but decided to ignore it in favor of full disclosure. "You see--"

"Spike, what, what is it? Don't you know you can tell me anything? Anything at all? Or maybe," Xander paused, his voice wavering, tears filling his eyes once again. *Oh, no!* he thought. *How could I have been so stupid? Spike could never want me!* "Maybe this meant more to me than it did to you, Spike. I'll just go."

Xander started gathering up his clothes, pulling them on haphazardly, backwards, inside out, and upside down, but he didn't seem to notice, what with the tears streaming down his face and his thoughts spinning wildly out of control.

"Xander, wait!" Spike called. "You've slipped from bad!fic ennui to bad!fic angst! Come back!" 

But it was too late. Xander had taken his negative thoughts and fled Spike's bed . . . maybe forever.

*****

*a year later . . . *

Xander sighed and huddled into his inside-out jacket and tucked his upside-down t-shirt back into his gay(tm) pants. 

Here he was in Portland, standing next to the world's smallest urban park, having fled to the city immediately after slipping out of Spike's life. Every waking moment he thanked Gods and Magicks and Other Unexplained and Differently-Spelled Powers that he had somehow hot-footed it from the room in his despair, eluding Spike despite his undead lover's lightning-quick vampire reflexes. 

"How did I do it?" Xander whispered to himself. "Must have been the extreme self-denigration and my brand-new Chucks. Man, those sure are some speedy sneakers." 

Since high-tailing it out of Sunnydale (of course not before tearfully flinging chocolate pudding in Buffy's face and telling her exactly what he thought of her prissy Slayernitude; sobbing on Giles' shoulder while he explained that Giles was like the father he never had except for the one that he *did* have; and wistfully enacting the secret handshake that he and Willow had shared since they were 5.1 years old -- while she was asleep, of course, and Tara looked on without saying a single word, as was her wont) he'd made his way to Seattle after an obligatory stop at Angel's so he could poke fun at his hard-gelled hair. It was Angel, in fact, who had given him the gay gay gay (tm) pants that he now wore. 

A year later, and he was both the hottest bartender at the most fabulous gay club and town *and* the most well-known stripper ever to command a three-figure lap dance. But it wasn't . . . it wasn't enough. Sure, he had fame (small children asked for his autograph on the street, shyly inquiring if they too could someday strip as well as him), fortune (thank god for that dead, rich, previously-unknown uncle), and access to the largest number of local microbrews in the country. 

But there was something missing. Something fangy, and bleached . . . someone with a really short torso and a chip in his head . . . someone called . . . "Spike," Xander whispered into the foggy air.

*****

*that same one year later*

Spike finished wiping down the counters of the second-most successful strip club in town, where he was currently a bartender. He declined offer after offer from the other employees as they left, and finished lifting the last chair onto the tables. 

Once, he would have taken them up on the offers of bed, and maybe even breakfast, but not anymore. Ever since his one true love had fled his bed in an inside-out, upside-down rush,-- though how Xander had been able to escape his clutches while wearing his pants backwards was anyone's guess-- he'd been unable to do anything more than sigh forlornly. 

Finally, his depression had him sighing so heavily he blew the pudding right of the Slayer. That final reminder of his Xander-sweetie-pie gone, Spike left town, determined not to be reminded of his schnookums any more.

Pulling himself forcibly back to the present, Spike shrugged into his duster, and pulled it tight around him. The sleeves mimicked a lover's embrace. A cold lover, an unfeeling lover, and inanimate, leather lover. Much like Mike, the biker-themed stripper at work.

Spike wandered aimlessly around the streets of downtown, passing the luxurious hotels he owned through a series of business dealings with the demon underground. He settled on one in which to stay that night. He never chose the same one twice, constantly seeking to make real his favorite fantasy that he would run into his long lost love in the lobby, and they would make wild, hot, passionate, and most of all loud monkey love from floor to floor, waking the guests with their excitement, providing job security for the cleaning crew.

Instead, lost in his thoughts as he was, he barreled straight into the chest of a tall, buff, ex-military man with piercing blue eyes. Before Spike could right himself, another man's hands straightened him. Spike turned to see who had caught him: a shorter man, with beautiful lips and curly hair.

"Are you all right, man? You were really zoned there. Hey! Hey! Mind if I ask you some questions?" 

"Uh, sure, I guess," Spike replied distractedly. He didn't really want to engage in conversation, but it had been so long since anyone had touched him. Hours, in fact, since the club had closed, and all the liquored-up ladies had left.

"Great, man! This is great! Jim, you don't mind, right?" The curly haired man asked his stone-faced companion.

Jim, who Spike could tell now was clearly a detective, shook his head. "No, chief, I don't mind." Jim focused his laser-gaze back on Spike. "As long as I get your solemn promise you won't attempt to drown my friend."

Spike, yes, still in shock, simply nodded. 

"So," 'Chief' began, bouncing with barely-restrained enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. Bouncing. All so much like Xander, except the hair and the eyes and the smell. It brought back too many memories; it was just too much, and suddenly Spike was reminded of why he had run so far, so fast.

"I'm sorry, I just can't do this!" Spike cried, and dashed through the throngs of Cascade PD Training and Knowledge Exchange Seminar participants to his penthouse room, where he could cry himself to sleep before the coming dawn.

*****

Xander sighed as he surveyed his sumptuous apartment. The intricately woven oriental rugs, the carefully carved statues of nubile young men, the refrigerator stocked full of Twinkies and Ho-Hos and shelf upon shelf of chocolate-covered-chocolate . . . it just didn't feel like *home*.

Only one place had ever felt like home to him. And that was pinned down to the sheets, writhing in ecstasy as Spike pounded into him. Xander wiped away a single tear, then wiped away another single tear, until he was forced to admit that he was once again *sobbing* like a five year old girl who had skinned her knee once her training wheels had been taken off her bike and her father had let go of the handlebars even though he swore that he *wouldn't* and she just felt so *abandoned* and sad and dirty, and fuck all of her dress wasn't torn up too! . . . 

Then he shifted moods quickly and began packing his personal belongings with eyes darkened by the knowledge of things that he knew. Knowing things. 

He had to get out of here. Had to find a new ridiculously ornate abode with baroque fixtures on which to spend his fabulously well-to-do deceased uncle's fortune. For just the other day, he had sensed that he was being followed. And not in the good sense of getting cruised and getting a blow job gratis, oh no. More like someone *wanted* something from him. Like someone . . . no, *two* someones . . . wanted to ask him *questions*.

Xander wrung out his hands, his fore and middle fingers on each cramped from continually making scare-quote gestures in the air to denote the emphasis of his thoughts. 

He had to leave, and now. But where? His eyes scanned the counters, and happened to fall upon a brochure advertising the charms of the lavish string of ludicrously expensive and ridiculously comfy hotels that lined the streets of downtown Portland. Despite the casual, laid-back nature of this city, there seemed to be luxury hotels aplenty. He couldn't figure it out -- then again, he wasn't exactly a *rocket scientist*. 

Xander nodded firmly, his mind made up. He'd have to get JoJo to strip for him tonight. Though the regulars would miss his special lasso-ing act, especially the part where he twisted around the floor frantically humping a cowboy hat with a piece of hay gripped in his teeth, transporting his many Louis Vuitton suitcases to one of those hotels was now his top priority.

*****

Spike bolted up out of bed with the all the grace of an Olympic gymnast, even though he'd never done so much as a cartwheel, and even though he'd been sound asleep just moments before. His eyeliner was also perfectly drawn on, even though he'd been sleeping, and didn't even wear it that often any more. Strange how it never smudged, no matter what activity he'd participated in, and without benefit of a reflection, either.

Focusing on what it was that had him catapulting out of bed, Spike scanned the darkness around him. Even through the heavy black-out curtains (so much like the ones in *their place*) his vampiric sight made it bright enough to see the posters and carvings, portraits and hastily-torn magazine covers of raven-haired boys that made up the decor of his penthouse. 'Queer-eyed tacky-riche' is how the designer described it. 

Spike paid the ambiance little mind, however. No matter how beautiful the boys in the artwork were, they weren't his Xander, and therefore were of little consequence to him. 

"Why am I awake?" he asked the underwear model in the photograph next to his bed. The model just pouted at him unhelpfully.

As Spike rose out of bed, he felt the hairs on the back on his arm rise, as if he were being watched. But no, he reminded himself, and the jeans model who stood sentry in his hallway. That would be impossible.

Or would it?

Yes, it would.

Spike opened the refrigerator and winced at the day-time bright light from within. Before his eyes could adjust, he'd grabbed a container of blood and drank it cold, grimacing at the taste, but preferring it this way out of some sense of self-flagellation. Angel did it, so Spike figured all heart-sick vampires did.

Spike wandered back to his large, overstuffed, curtained, decadent bed. He may be paying for irreparable mistakes in letting Xander get away, but that was no excuse for a stiff neck in the morning. 

Spike climbed under the heavy comforter. *Comforter*, he snorted. Nothing was as comforting as his Xander, though that was a luxury, as he'd pointed out numerous times in the past, which was beyond his reach now. 

Dismissing the strange feeling that had woken him, Spike fell back into a deep sleep.

Meanwhile, Jim and Blair lay entangled together, brows and other parts slick with sweat, both panting heavily, several floors beneath where Spike slept heart-wrenchingly well in his decadently comfortable bed.

"That was great, Jim. But I'm still worried about that blond guy. Did you see how pale he was? He needs some more vitamins in his diet, man. Perhaps, in my philanthropic way, I could send him a fruit basket."

"Of course you could, Blair," Jim replied, making plans to purchase the most elaborate fruit basket he could find. 

"But, well, Jim," Blair said, nibbling his bottom lip. "I don't have a lot of cash, you know."

"Don't worry about it, sweetling," Jim replied. "Would that I could provide for you fiscally and physically may I sate you," he confessed in an uncharacteristically romantic-language enhanced, talkative mood. "Because you are pure of heart and dirty of mind."

"You know it, man," Blair whispered against Jim's lips, and prepared them both for round two.

 

*****

Xander handed over the requisite double-platinum jewel-encrusted credit card to ensure that he'd have the second-most-luxurious penthouse suite in the overpriced and decadent den of comfort that was the hotel he'd now be calling his home.

He'd picked the swankiest, ritziest one of them all, naturally. His lip quivered as he acknowledged that it would be far easier to suffer with down pillows, concierge attention, and complimentary fruit baskets delivered to his room each and every morning.  
"But no kiwis," Xander managed to breathe tearfully to the desk clerk. "They make my throat itch, and the seeds wig me out, and I just. can't . . . "

"Of course," the clerk rushed to assure him. "Anything for you . . . well, let's just say that I'm a fan of your lithesome dance moves as well as your deliciously trendy cocktail inventions, Mr. Lavelle."

Xander smiled wanly as he inwardly flinched at his despised middle name, which now passed as his surname. Just another way to punish himself, reminding him of what he'd *lost*. And he was now going by his whole first name, Alexander, rather than his accustomed nickname (though he still called himself Xander in his own thoughts and all omniscient narration just to keep things simple). He loathed his full first name. Just couldn't stand it. Ick. And ew.

But what a small price to pay . . . and he really couldn't think of *any* other way to increase his suffering . . . 

"Would you like the regular cotton sheets, or our luxury satin sheeting ensemble for your bed?"

"Satin," Xander said absently. Why did everything have to cause him so much *pain*?

"And would you like the continental breakfast served to you in your dining alcove each morning?"

"God, no," Xander said scornfully. "I'm on the latest no-carb diet, as I'm striving to transition my surprisingly lucrative stripping career into a much-coveted modeling contract. So make that a triple order of bacon with cheese melted on top. No extra fruit. Fruits are carbs. You'll be seeing my picture ripped out of magazines and posted on people's walls before too long. Probably on the walls of this very establishment."

"I'm sure I will sir," the clerk murmured. "Looking debauched, delicious, and darkly dangerous, I imagine."

"You're damn right," Xander said hotly. 

The clerk swooned in ecstasy as he entered in the special dietary guidelines of his newest celebrity guest, lost in those penetrating eyes and that cupid's bow pout of Xander's mouth. Unseeing in his misery, Xander continued internally to bemoan his loveless, forlorn, abandoned, and generally no-good terrible bad fate.

Both were so wrapped up in their overwhelming emotions that they failed to notice the obviously recently-sexed man who had written down every word of their conversation. His curly hair mussed, his fingers nimbly recording the words in his Blackberry, the man appeared about to dance a gleeful jig at any moment. 

He danced the jig very quickly, and went back to his note-taking.

"My darling, sweetling, LifeMate," Jim murmured to Blair as they hid together behind the potted plant after Blair had completed the highland dance maneuver.

"Hey, glad to have you all chatty after the sex," Blair said, "but pack it square while I figure out the mystery that is that raven-haired beauty currently getting the keys to the second-most ornate penthouse in this fine hotel."

The two of them were so busy spying on Xander and the clerk that they completely missed the loud *PING* that announced the arrival of the express elevator, the one that went directly from the penthouse floor to the lobby. But every other person's gaze in the lobby turned to watch as the doors ever so slowly slid open, about to reveal what would surely be someone who embodied the very principles of prOn, sex-on-a-stick, mind-melting hotness and soulful, tortured eyes to boot. 

The people in the lobby had incredibly overactive imaginations.

Jim, of course, *would* have easily heard the *PING* of the elevator, but he had zoned on the conveniently placed strip of his Guide's back, peeking out from under his rucked-up, rumpled, and equally well-sexed tee-shirt, which had not even been removed for round one, such was the need for Jim to taste his beloved. Or so he had said. 

So beautiful, that creamy skin, with the barest hint of a Jim-finger-shaped bruise forming from where the Sentinel had claimed him, roughly, but no rougher than his Shaman could bear, of course. For it was simply not in the Blessed Protector to hurt his Teaching fellow/Partner-in-every-sense/Little Guppy.

Blair, noticing Jim deep in the thrall of a zone, quickly maneuvered to bring Jim out of it by crooning softly, and placing his hands on socially acceptable places along Jim's body, and therefore missed the startled gasp of the sable-haired stripper.

Spike, for his part, drawing the narrative attention back to the focal point of this missive, froze in his place inside the elevator, but recovered in time to punch the 'door open' button when the elevator began to steal the sight of his precious, his one and only, his . . . 

*Rosebud*.

No, his . . . his *Xander*.

Xander spun on his heel, quickly sprinting from the lobby, away from his heart's true desire.

With a roar of long-pent-up emotion, Spike's features shifted quickly and he took off quickly after the boy -- *his* boy! 

Bumping into the Sentinel and Guide pair on his way past, Spike caught their attention. 

"Well, fuck me sideways, Jim."

"Okay!" Jim quickly interrupted, only to be forestalled by Blair's hand gently placed on his arm.

"They weren't Sentinel and guide after all! They were just a vampire and his once bitten, twice shy lover. After all those notes, not even a dissertation to come out of it!"

"Well, that's good, Chief. At least now it can't get leaked to the press, causing us to fight and you to denounce your life's ambition, only to have Simon pull some strings and get you into the Academy."

Jim and Blair broke out into wide grins before succumbing to hysterical laughter. "Yeah, right, Jim. As if that would happen! Now, let's go work on figuring out your little vocabulary problem, man. I want you to find your dials, okay, man? Find your dials," Blair's voice dropped into Guide range.

"Got 'em," Jim said.

"Alright, Jim, focus on your Shakespearean Harlequin Novel Language dial, and wrench that bad boy all the way down to zero, man."

With that, Jim regained his stoicism, and he and Blair went back to their suite, content to focus on the rest of the conference, and much fucking of the sideways persuasion.

Spike, once again drawing the action back from plot B, chased after Xander, through the hotel's four-star kitchen, and out into the alley. Looking first one way, then another, Spike saw only dimly lit pavement, dumpsters, alcoves, and various other places for a human being to hide. 

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed, turning his broken-hearted, soulless, chipped self back to the door, heading back inside, certain that he'd never be able to survive losing his soulless-mate not once, but twice.

*****

"Nooooooooo . . . " Xander shrieked suddenly as he saw his best friend and his dearest darling begin to turn away from him. He coughed in the middle of his exclamation, cleared his throat, and then continued weakly, "ooooooooooooo . . . .."

Spike whirled around, a spray of garbage flying in his wake, his sharp features lit up like a Christmas tree by the light of the moon. He struck a sultry pose, quirked his scarred eyebrow, and clasped at his unbeating heart at the sight of his fuckworthy lover of yore.

"No, Spike," Xander cried, clambering out of the dumpster that had been filled with richly-woven tapestries, plush divans, and a lone comfy chair. "No, please . . . I . . . "

They locked eyes, both moving forward propelled as if by forces of magnetic attraction . . . Spike reached for Xander, and in that single moment Xander felt all the sadness and incompleteness and enforced celibacy of that past year sloughed off of him like so much dead skin under the ministrations of a very competent aesthetician.

Xander's lips parted, his head tilted back, his knees stooped so that Spike could more easily reach his lips and dominate him (hello! bottom here!) . . . but just as Spike's lips brushed his he drew back with such force that he hit his head on the dumpster.

"Ow," Xander complained, rubbing at the bump that his panicked withdrawal had occasioned. At Spike's inquiring look, he held up his hand, wanting and yearning and needing to ward off the inevitable, but unable to stop the train-wreck of a question that was hurtling out of his mouth at a speed that wouldn't break the sound barrier, but would nonetheless make a normal man very, very dizzy.

"Um. What the hell were you going to tell me that night, anyway?" Xander opened his liquid brown orbs wide wide wide -- wide enough to swallow the night that surrounded them both. 

Then he blinked, because, you know, it'd be weird if he didn't. Plus it would hurt. Dry eyes and all that. 

Spike brought his hand up to caress the bump rising on Xander's head, and as his fingers slowly sank into the silken threads, sense memory cast him back . . . 

back through the past year . . . 

back . . . 

back . . . 

back to a cold winter night years ago . . . 

no, that was too far. 

Back a year ago, to Xander's warm body under his own, sweaty, voice hoarse from screaming his passion into Spike's mouth, his wrists limp and his loafers lightened, his fashion sense improving as Spike prepared to take his virginity.

Spike's memory was dampened by a sharp noise. "Oh, *god*, Jim!" 

"Gee, that really *is* annoying when you're not getting any, huh?" Xander wondered absently, casting a perturbed glance up toward the illuminated window where the silhouette of two beautiful men could be seen in various and sundry and sideways positions.  
Xander nuzzled his head into Spike's palm, but not the bruised part, because, ow. He hadn't been knocked on the noggin like that since leaving Sunnydale. It wasn't a habit he wanted to pick up again, but if it brought Spike back into his life, he'd beat himself silly on dumpsters for hours at a time. Or until he passed out. No problem.

"Where was I?" Spike asked.

"I'm not sure. You got a kind of glazed look. Were you maybe," Xander shrugged, nibbling his bottom lip in an unconscious imitation of that night Spike had been remembering so well, "thinking back on that night? The one I just asked you about?"

"Yes. Yes, Xander, I wanted so badly to tell you. You see, I . . . It's like this, see . . . I love . . . you."

"That was what you were going to say that night?" Xander's voice shook with emotion, and his body trembled with anticipation while his lip quivered (as it so often did). "That was what made me think that all of our steamy, hard and dirty yet *meaningful* lovemaking was all a game to you? What made me flee our mating bed and come to this godforsaken yet friendly city where I've become a renowned stripper as well as the most highly rated bartender in the **Zagat's Portland Nightlife** guide?"

"Well, yeah," Spike said uncomfortably. He hoped they could get through this talking part quickly, because right now he wanted nothing more than to clasp Xander to him and deftly undo his pants so that they could celebrate their reunion with some good old-fashioned manpire-boy nookie. 

All of Xander's long-harbored feelings of love, devotion, confusion, mild irritation, and general horniness rushed to the surface like many bats coming out of many hell dimensions in one fell swoop.

"You were scared, weren't you Spike?" he asked softly as he advanced on his love, beginning to undo his buttoned shirt in a languid series of moves that he'd picked up during his many acclaimed strip performances.

"You worried what Buffy would say . . . what Willow would do . . . how Giles would look . . . But most of all, you thought that I'd reject you, didn't you?" Xander watched Spike with love burning in his eyes as he did a shimmy and a bump before shrugging off his shirt.

"I . . . yes," Spike admitted, despite thinking no such thing. He'd mostly just been cut off by Xander's adorably abundant babbling, and had been surprised into silence by Xander's hasty yet sexy departure from the basement. But he wasn't about to admit all that, at least not while Xander had taken off his shirt to reveal his gleaming golden chest, glinting warmly in the alley that was the backdrop to their unexpected tryst.

"Spike, I . . . " Xander cast his long lashes down shyly as he undid his pants with a practiced move and twisted his muscular body to its best advantage. "I love you too," he admitted softly, letting his pants fall to the ground.

From high above them, again, came an "Oh, god, *Jim*!"

But Spike ignored the happily rutting couple, too intent on reducing his own state of dress to match that of his adorably denuded, insecure lover to bother with yelling at the noisy men.

"Oh, god, *Spike*!" Xander whispered. "Take me! Take me, now, make me yours! Mark me, claim me, *fuck me*!"

Before Xander could so much as nibble his lip and cast his eyes down shyly, Spike had gathered him in his arms, and rushed him at vampiric speed down the block, through the sumptuous lobby, into the well-appointed express elevator, up to the penthouse suite floor, past the entryway to his private quarters, and on to the decadently comfortable and tastefully appointed bed.

Xander lay panting on the bed where Spike had carefully tossed him. "I think my ears popped," he observed.

"Vampiric speed can do that to a man, pet," Spike assured him as he deftly flipped on the switch on the ingenuous gadget on the night table so that it could heat the lube. 

"Oooh," Xander exclaimed incoherently, as Spike drew the curtains around their king-and-a-half-sized bed of love then struck a saucy pose on the velvet coverlet before crawling up Xander with feline slinkiness. 

"But that isn't nearly so discombobulating," Spike purred as he quickly handcuffed Xander to the bed's headboard, "as the shockingly rapid recovery time for vampiric bits and pieces."

"I would have been used to it by now," Xander noted tearfully, "if only I hadn't run away, afraid that you didn't love me . . . and just maybe, a little afraid that you *did*."

"Oh, *Xander*," Spike said feelingly. Then he cleared his throat. "Um, we are going to fuck, aren't we?"

Xander snorted. "Duh!"

"Well then," Spike said, grabbing the lube and liberally coating his hands, cock, fingertips, and elbows just for good measure, "let's get started!"

*Five and a half hours later . . . *

Xander's hair spread out across the pillow like a fan made of the finest dark chocolate, scattered with highlights of raspberry-flavored truffle filling. Boneless and debauched, his golden body draped over the bed, Spike watched him sleep, running the thought through his head one more time in a confusion of pronouns. 

*This is why I stayed with women for so long, he thought. Too confusing, with all the hes and hises. But, oh, if only I had known!**

He felt little Spike stir with renewed interest for the nineteenth time. *To be fair*, he chided his inner narrator, *it is not little. It's quite large, proportionately. And Xander will attest to that fact, as soon as he regains consciousness.*

His inner narrator quickly agreed, and continued on, her gaze lingering in a most inappropriate manner. Spike's enormous throbbing cock began to stir, but Spike quickly clamped down on his urges. He had been a bit concerned when the boy's -- no, man, must remember he's a man now, fully legal in all fifty states -- pleasureful screaming abruptly cut off and his toffee-colored eyes had rolled back in his head, his body going limp after shooting copious amount of the most delicious fluid Spike had ever tasted. 

Reaching across the bed, Spike picked up the bright pink princess phone and dialed. 

"Hello, room service? Please send up the Just Got Laid Platter. Yes, the brunet version. Chocolate, toffee, coffee, hazlenuts, cream, cinnamon, whiskey, caramel."

*****

Xander awoke to the enticing smell of whiskey-soaked caramels being melted down over chocolate-covered toffee. 

"Murble," he said, his mouth already stuffed full of the enticing, sweet confection.

"Yeah, I liked that part too, pet," Spike drawled, lifting his head from giving Xander a hickey on his inner thigh. "And we can do it again as soon as -- "

"Grembabble," Xander interrupted.

"Oh, again?" Spike asked. "While you're in the middle of eating the cavity-inducing feast of the overly sexed? You're quite the stallion, aren't you love?"

"Mleeblah," Xander said with a leer. Then he swallowed and cleared his throat. "Okay. We could do that again," he remarked as Spike nodded vigorously. "Or, we could do something even *more* physically intimate." 

Xander paused, his head cocked to the side as he thoughtfully considered the many exciting sexual possibilities he could now explore with his undead lover of the vampiric variety now that they had worked out all of the hurtful misunderstandings that had somehow caused a rift as wide as the grandest of canyons to open up between them. 

"For some reason," Spike said slowly, "I choose the 'more' option."

"I know what you mean," Xander agreed. "Something seems to be compelling us to continually up the ante in our fevered grappling. Like first, we had the one-fisted, two-cock inclusive masturbation session . . . "

"That is always a good way to start," Spike said. "Followed of course by the mind-numbingly ecstatic rubbing of hardness against hardness, our erections grinding together in a frenzy of frottage."

"Then," Xander pointed out, "you went down on me, using tricks that no woman could possibly ever know, handling me more roughly than any woman ever would, sucking my warm seed into your throat ecstatically as no woman would ever think to do, because we all know that chicks refuse to swallow. And though I wanted to reciprocate, I was suddenly engulfed with the post-sex-sleepiness, so all I could bring myself to do was to jack you off shyly."

"While you looked at me through your long dark lashes," Spike said fondly. "I remember, pet."

"Of course, the last part was the best," Xander concluded. "In which you twisted my shockingly-sensitive nipples -- something that no one has ever done before because apparently only men think that other men's nipples are sensitive -- before preparing me for your enormous cock so slowly and sensitively that I almost fell asleep again."

"Leading to our loving but brutal coupling, done of course with you on your back."

"What other way would we do it?" Xander asked in confusion. 

"Oh, there is no other way for us," Spike clarified. "Although the on-your-hands-and-knees position feels fantastic, our enduring and hot copulation must always be imbued with as much meaning as we can muster. Bloody hell," he added as an after thought.

"Boy, am I glad to hear you say that," Xander grinned. "All of it, but particularly the bloody hell part. Your diction was getting a little . . . " He waved his hand around vaguely.

"Non-Big-Baddish?" Spike asked.

"Yes! Exactly. Although of course you can change your way of speaking at any time to something more cultured and mannered, because you can channel your educated past like *that*," Xander explained with a snap of his fingers. 

" 'S'easier to write me because of that. Any sod can come up with an explanation for making me sound terribly educated or as knock-down as they come," Spike shrugged.

"Huh?" Xander asked.

"Nothing, pet, nothing," Spike replied hastily. "Cor," he added as a further reassurance to his lover. 

Xander, drawing comfort from the randomly muttered Briticisms, snuggled further into his lover's shoulder, wincing for a moment at the boniness there. He thought for a moment that it might be comfier for all involved if it was Spike who snuggled into his shoulder, but being the subbiest sub in all of subville, he couldn't quite bring himself to reverse their positions. 

Of course, if he was really the king bottom of bottomdom, he would want to protect his powerful Top with his very life. And that should mean he would wrap his barely/much larger frame around Spike, imparting his warmth to the room-temperature creature of the night. 

Certainly, his status as living furnace had never been questioned. It was hard to maintain his cool, crisp appearance while wearing all those ugly, trendy, geeky, thrift-store, hand-me-down, threadbare, welfare-reject sweaters over the years, but he had managed. After all, Alexander Lavelle Harris, friend to the Slayer, Buffy Not-Short-For-Elizabeth Summers, and Willow 'The inept-to-most-powerful Witch' Rosenberg, with various and sundry others who came into and out of their lives as need dictated, was overlooked by everyone, even his own parents. Except when they were beating him, though he wasn't ever sure if those were his memories, or simply convenient plot-devices picked up from various Made-for-TV movies he'd watched through his years putting off schoolwork while secretly yearning to apply his concealed knowledge. But they would never see him as anything other than--

"Pet? Xan-love?" Spike's concerned-yet-annoyed tone of voice tried to break through Xander's reverie, but Xander waved him off. Vaguely, as if through a muddy, cloudy puddle of vague, Xander thought he could make out Spike's words. But it took too much of his limited concentration to pay attention, for Xander knew most people thought he had no patience for anything other than sci-fi trivia and comic books. It wasn't true, but he had spent so long now living down to other people's expectations of him, he had forgotten how to be true to himself. 

Spike found himself, briefly afraid he'd gone wandering in an astral projection sort of way, growing more and more concerned with the listlessness of his new human-and-therefore-infinitely-fragile lover. When he literally saw the smoke begin to pour from Xander's ears, and when he could literally hear the gears behind those expressive yet hooded eyes begin to grind, realization hit Spike like an overused simile.

"You've fallen into the pit of clunky and redundant exposition, Pet! Come back to me now! Xander! Come back!" 

But Spike was helpless to do anything but watch as the brunet who'd come to mean more to him than his very own unlife sank deeper and deeper into needlessly mulling over his familiar and much-explored past.

Xander wandered through the mists of his mind, running and skipping, and generally acting like a six-year old. He paused at a window to toss a baseball through it to hear the satisfying *crash*!, and then stomped on a harmless group of ants with great glee. He threw a rock at a group of girls and screamed "Cooties, cooties!" at them before running and hiding behind a bush. 

Suddenly he was pulled back to his older self. But was it the hyena!Xander, or the soldier!Xander, or an uncomfortable amalgamation of those two plus evil!wrong!vamp!Xander? Or, far worse, was it . . . AncientMariner!Xander???

//What, you missed the part in which Xander was possessed by the spirit of the Ancient Mariner from the Coleridge poem? Really? Too bad. That was, like, one of the best eps ever. ***Ever!***//

No, it was none of those. It was . . . denial!Xander!!! 

//My parents never hurt me,// he insisted through the thought-demarcations of the double-backslashes as he rocked himself back and forth. //It was the Cosby family that had all that abuse. Oh, sure, they *seemed* happy, but if you just read between the lines . . . //

Xander was startled back to reality by Spike, who was tossing marshmallows at his head.

"Don't go wandering on me, pet," Spike shouted hoarsely as he broke apart a Hershey's bar and prepared to arrange the ingredients for S'mores on the side table next to the automatic fireplace. "I can't bear you pulling away from me," he added, as he shoved a whole graham cracker into his mouth and sobbed around the crumbs flying past his lips.

"See, it's my parents," Xander said haltingly.

Spike held up his hand. "Say no more. I lived in that basement with you for eight years, and I know what happened. Despite Buffy and Red, and Giles, and Angel, and everyone in town pretending they didn't notice the signs and the markings and the *pain* -- I always knew . . . always tried to protect you . . . always *failed*," Spike finished sadly.

"About that," Xander began. "What, um, did you . . . know?"

Spike blinked. "Well, how your parents made you sell Amway products, of course!"

"Right," Xander exclaimed, taking a large breath. "Amway! I knew that it was *something*." 

"So I thought we could kill your parents the next time we're in Sunnydale," Spike remarked conversationally as he handed Xander an ooey-gooey marhsmallowy treat.

"That'd be swell, Spike," Xander said with feeling. " 'Cause even though I normally wouldn't hurt a soul and would, if given the suitable superpowers, actually pre-empt each and every one of Buffy's heroic acts and one-up her by becoming either immortal, or able to throw fire from my fingertips, or able to fuck Angel in a single bound without him losing his soul and becoming Angelus . . . I'd really like it if we could off the people who gave birth to me because of a sneaking suspicion that they weren't all that nice."

"Of course, my darling Xander, my boy, my sweetling, my cute widdle human manchild," Spike cooed. 

They embraced once more before separating, smiling a little awkwardly at once another.

Spike coughed, and Xander hummed a little tune.

"Rimming!" Spike exclaimed suddenly.

"Oh, thank *god*," Xander joined in. "I knew that there was something vaguely kinky that we hadn't tried yet." 

And so they proceeded to tongue one another senseless.


End file.
